Entertainment and being a musician are two different things
Those karaoke backed up singers are obviously entertainers
While the guy playing guitar and singing was a musician..
Just ask yourself what you want to be....

In general, i prefer musicians that are entertainers on top of being musicians..

In general, I've made it on being an entertainer...wish I was a better musician.

Part of the problem(for me anyway)is this...

I feel better about entertaining when the music I put out is good...at least it sounds good to me.

Well in my opinion, I believe real musicians are a dying breed.

Instead of continuing to upgrade try to learning your instrument to a greater extent.
Where possible try getting to play even once a month with a few real musicians it dosent have to be for money.

Just my thoughts
on it.

Thats not entirely t'rue... Singer songwriters havent been so popular with the big audience in a very long time... There are still a lot of musicians out there, you only need to see that the tools are changing..

Interesting Boo. And BTW, most of you are right. People don't go ANYwhere for the music anymore, they go for the ILLUSION of 'partying', having a good time. That usually involves loud music (source be damned), many, many watered-down drinks, and the right 'optics' ('club' atmosphere). There are several notable exceptions, however (where people actually go to hear the music). One is the classical concert (in any of it's forms - Pipe Organ, Piano, Symphony Orchestra or any of it's scaled-down offshoots, etc.). The other is the predominantly-Black Jazz club. Although, like most other music venues, it is a dying breed, it may be one of the last places left to hear really good music played by really good musicians. These VERY demanding audiences will weed out the 'wannabe's' and 'not quite ready for prime time' players but, in their own unique way, will definitely acknowledge the exceptional player.....and believe me, they know the difference. Definitely not an ideal place to bring Arranger KB-type entertainment.

At these venues, you can be sure of several things:
1. Bad food.
2. Overpriced, watered-down drinks.
3. Supportive and respectful audience if you're good, but you won't get a pass if you're not.
4. A Cover charge.
5. Lousy pay if you're the musician and damn few tips from a jazz audience.
6. An impending club closure (few NEW jazz clubs make it past the first year).

All sad but true. The few that do make it tend to be things like micro-breweries and the like, that feature jazz exclusively.
Luckily, Atlanta has probably more than it's share of Jazz venues but it also has more than it's share of really good jazz musicians, so it's sort of a wash. There are a number of organized jazz listening groups that patronize and support these venues. Odd, I know, but Atlanta is a very strange city where you're either on the inside or you have no clue of what the music/club scene is REALLY like.

Interesting topic, though.

chas

Just to prove a point.....Who ever though Big bands of the 30's, 40-'s which were mainstream would ever be GONE?
All musical genres after that till today are slowly disappearing also only to be replaced by something else.
Years from now people will say ...
"Hey remember when people played instruments?" It's a sad fact of life.Things change,some faster then others. People of the the last 60+ years have seen many more changes and quickly too, music is just ione of those things,...Today its, Create your OWN little world of happiness and enjoy it throughout your life,...hang in there as it's gonna get even more wacky out there!

What is played (types of instruments/tone generators)changes...the art form and those who participate evolve with the form.

Literally every image on line and on network contains audio that a musician created. Obviously, so does broadcast radio.

We were on the job "knocking it out" before arrangers and a few of the youngest, most hardy will be here after they're gone.

It doesn't matter what you play (what instrument)....JUST PLAY!


R.

Hi Donnie:

I don't have the answer to your question... but DJ's (as Boo says) seem to be getting most of the action. I pretty well agree with Boo's lack of enthusiasm for most DJs but there are a few good ones. One thing is certain, I would be lost without my Yamaha 910. Arrangers are such an advantage for songwriters and the new styles and instrument tweaks Yamaha has provided are certainly better. I just placed a new ten song album with an outfit called Loudr. Not only do they sell albums direct from their site... they also provide them to iTunes, Pandora and other "retailers."

Thanks, Yamaha... keep up the good work.

Dave Rice

Some deejays are musicians that create their own music live on stage... they just use different tools...

Some Deejays are just entertainers, that recreate what others did.

And then there are those deejays that are nothing more then radio presentators in front of a live audience, that play MP3s after MP3... thats the oldfashioned Deejay

On reflection (Have Arranger KBs died out ?), I would question whether they were ever really 'alive'. I don't believe they ever caught on to the degree that the auto-accompaniment home organs did. Of course I don't know this for sure but I seem to remember that about a third of every middle class household had one. If they (arrangers) were meant as the successor for this market, you would have to conclude that this was a dismal failure. Young people won't buy them (any more than they'd buy a nice Conn or Lowry organ), music schools won't buy them (defeats the purpose of learning an instrument), 'Pros' won't use them (with the exception of OMB's) viewing them as too restrictive, Studios won't use them (for obvious reasons), and finally, Home players won't buy them (in large numbers), presumably because of the cost and the lack of the 'furniture' factor - let's face it, a Tyros 5 (with cables and crap hanging out all over the place) just doesn't cut it in the Living room or 'Parlor' and Five grand is too much to plop it in the rec room for the kids or grandkids to bang on.

Now bear in mind that I'm only speculating on the scene in America; Europe and Asia could be completely different. On THIS forum, it seems like everyone has an arranger kb, but in the 'real world', and especially on the live music scene, they are as rare as hen's teeth. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if up to 60-70% of arranger kb owners belonged to this forum. I'm guessing they make up less than 5% of all KB sales. So will they die out? Probably, except for a few boutique instruments. Limited sales volume will always keep the prices high, especially the TOTL models, plus, new ways of making music will leave arrangers in the dusk...in other words, they will simply have no role to play. I predict that all the things that they do well ie. sketch pad, demo arrangements, ect., will be taken over by some form of computer. I think you've already pretty much established that today's audiences don't really care where the music is coming from - especially if the vocals are good and the 'entertainment' quotient is high.

JMO, of course.

chas